At the end of February, I had the privilege of joining international press in a two-day junket to London. The first day featured a screening of the first episode of the new season of Game of Thrones—more on which later, when we’re allowed to say more about it!—and the second day featured several hours of round-table interviews with a number of actors, as well as executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss. Those will all be going up apace in the days to come. Of all the interviews, however, one of our personal favorites was the one with veteran, respected actor Charles Dance, who plays Lord Tywin Lannister, the uncompromising, ruthless patriarch of the Lannister clan, and we’ve decided that it was very well suited to leading off the interview.

Having acted for some forty years, Dance had his start with the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, and went on to roles in many television and film productions, including parts in The Jewel in the Crown, Bleak House, The Last Action Hero, and Gosford Park. In the interview that follows, Dance discusses his role as Tywin Lannister in some detail, the scale and scope of HBO’s production, and his future legacy as an actor.